Oh yeah, speaking of GTA III, my weirdest "I should slow down on the video games" moment was after putting in like a 10 hour GTA III session at my friends house, and on the way home I kept having an urge to get out of the car and steal the police car that had pulled up next to me at a red light.

All the time. I can definitely echo the previous two posts - every time I would pass a motorcycle while walking home from work I had to remind myself, you can't take that. In fact, you can't even ride one. It made me realize how useful/criminal it would be to simply avail oneself of any vehicle lying about. I wouldn't do it all the time, mind you, just when I got tired of walking.

Whenever I play a game where I can slow down time I always think I can do it in my dreams. They will be fairly normal, otherwise - shopping, walking around, reading - but at some point I will always think, hey, I'll just slow down time to get through this, and then the dream me has to say, wait, you can't do that.

I've been working my way through Final Fantasy X, which my roommate got me hooked on, and have had a couple dreams about getting in fights with people but it's like it is on the game, with HP and MP and being able to cast spells and shit. The dreams were more funny than anything.

xtal, if you like FFX, you should try stepping back a few "versions" to FF VIII or even FF IX (VII is a classic and goes without saying). The fighting mechanics are similar, but the story line is more open with lots of roaming. FFX, in my opinion, is hindered by (*ahem* a condescending, goo-goo-girls-are-cute script) a very linear mapping system, where exploration is hindered and leveling is non-adventurous.FF VIII has simliar character design, while FF IX is more cartoony.I put FFX aside several months ago, because I'm a completist and the leveling was becoming annoying.

Me, I've been playing Guildwars for almost 2 years now. Still finding new stuff to "do." No monthly fee and large community and very little "grind." i recommend it. sadly it's windows only...

I have 3 exceedingly elderly computers dedicated to nothing but playing cheesy adventure games from the late 80's, early 90's. I've been playing the new, serialized Sam and Max game nonstop for the last few days. FPS games make me carsick, and my computer's never good enough. I've never owned a console. I can get sucked into Snood for days at a time.

My sister's really into MMORPGs, but they only make me want to stab people in the face. I'm allergic to teenagers and bad spelling.

My roommate said basically the same thing about liking other versions more, for basically the same reasons. I'm just playing it because it isn't horrible and we've been spending all our money on holiday gifts and booze. My boyfriend just got a part time holiday job at a store that sells used CDs, DVDs, and games though...so maybe I can use his discount to pick up a couple other versions of FF.

I've been thinking whether I've had any video game dreams and I'm pretty sure I had one a few years back, in which I was a character in the SNES classic 'Zombies Ate My Neighbours'. It was fairly pleasant, all things considered.

There was a very bizarre horror game called Siren (Forbidden Siren in the UK) a while back that had one of the better premises for a game I'd ever run across. It did the usual you-visit-a-remote-village-and-hey-they're-all-zombies thing but turned it on its head. You get there before everything goes batshit, but when it does, you're not told why. That's the whole point of the game is to figure this out.

The storytelling is also presented in an incredibly original fashion. You control 10 different characters, and the "stages" are more or less random timeframes from the 3 days the game takes place. When a stage starts, you're simply told the character's name, their location, and shown a running 72 hour clock. Clear that stage and you may jump back in time to play something that happened 3 hours earlier with a different person, or hop ahead a full day and play through the terrible aftermath of some catastrophic event, only to spend the next 8 levels intermittently playing up to that event with the other characters, again knowing what's going to happen, but not knowing why.

Also, the "zombies" in the game are quickly revealed to be anything but. For one thing, they're not dead. In fact, they can't be killed. Ever. You can beat them down and do your best to kill them, but the best you're going to get is maybe 2 minutes of downtime before they stagger back to their feet, wounds healed, giggled madly and then chasing you down and killing you. They have no problems climbing up ledges, opening doors, using flashlights to look for you, or running very fast.

All of this takes place in a village that has been plunged into pitch dark and suddenly surrounded on all sides by a red sea. Also, as the game slowly reveals, your characters are slowly turning into the same zombies (in one stage a character you're playing as makes the transition without realizing it). It's some of the best psychological horror I've ever sat through.

Having your brain stuck in a virtual world thing? Yeah. I know that one. When MGS II came out I had a tendency to want to stick close to walls when I walked around. Splinter Cell had me subconsciously preferring to walk in shadows at night and avoid well lit areas. Halo and Res Evil just gave me goddamn zombie nightmares and no other change in brain activity.

And contrary to media speculation, I've been a solid GTA junkie since the first PC games and I'm yet to shoot people indiscriminately, beat a hooker to death with a bat or steal a car and run over pedestrians. That's what Red Bull is for.

Oblivion on the 360...I'm too busy to play games, yet somehow I've managed to clock up 60 hours on the 360 with this game so far (since buying it last month) and I haven't even got around to starting the main quest yet.

I have Forbidden Siren, DJ, but I don't think I've played it since the day I bought it. I started playing it, thought 'what the shuddering fuck', and turned it off. I should really give it another go but, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm, well...abysmal at computer games. I have trouble getting through option menus, nevermind the games themselves.

The only game that's really hacked my brain recently was Katamari Damacy. I definitely dreamed that more than once. I seem to remember Syndicate popping into my dreams more than once in high school as well.

When Gran Tourismo came to the playstation, my friends and I played for up to 14 Hours a day... I was racing the whole night in pixels and textures and when i finally woke up in the middle off the night i could go back to sleep happily because i knew from that point on i was racing in my dreams too, but htis time in 'real life' images....

Even if I play a lot of ego shooters i never dreamed them..

Right now, I'm playing mostly the orange box from steam (portal <em>is</em> a really nice game ;) ) and exploring the open-source ego shooters (so back to my quake3 days...)

a long long long time ago when I played resident evil: code veronica i would dream about it. it was strange, awesome, thrilling and then, when i woke up, i realized that maybe i needed a break from the game. it is cool and pathetic all rolled into one... sleeping bag?In my now over writing class we watched a video, shown on discovery recently, about video games and the future of this technology. Emotional responses are the goal and if people are getting that response- crying, laughing, fear - this sentence seemed relevant 5 seconds ago.

I like that Myndbreaker mentioned 'ego shooters.' That is exactly what they are, yet I had never heard that term before. I am out of the gaming loop.